RDH - NASCAR: The Most Thoroughly American Sport on the Planet

NASCAR: The Most Thoroughly American Sport on the Planet

July 26, 2007

If you're an American, there's no better way to celebrate the past than to worship at the altar of American stock-car racing. But let's skip the small talk and go straight to a three-way comparison among America's top-three professional sports: NFL football, Major League Baseball, and NASCAR.*

AMERICA’S TOP-THREE SPORTS: A BLOW-BY-BLOW COMPARISON
FAN PARTICIPATION
Football	Few football fans actually play any football themselves. Many among especially the middle-aged males, however, enjoy the spectacle of brute physical contact, and most will have a pretty good idea of just how to throw the sport's unique ball in such a way that it spirals aerodynamically through the air in an almost miraculous arc.
Baseball	Though it is dangerous to swing full-sized bats at the lively hardballs used by the pros anywhere other than within the confines of a very large field—a factor that severely limits playing time among especially the adult fans, few of whom spend much time outdoors, let alone more than a few yards from vehicles or buildings—the majority of baseball's faithful, both men and women, are reasonably adept at playing catch with the modern era's huge baseball "mitts."
NASCAR	All contemporary Americans, even those with full-body paralysis, and even those who live in the farthest reaches of Appalachia or depend on an oxygen tank, will have had firsthand experience with automobile travel. Moreover, the majority of those with driver's licenses (and probably all of those who have lost their license through illegal activities)† will have experienced, at one time or another, the thrill of driving extremely fast, or of having been a passenger in a car that was being driven extremely fast—or, at the very least, of having been on the same roadway with another car that was being driven extremely fast. As an added bonus, there are more American-made cars on the roads in America than in any other country, giving the fans of NASCAR—which features American vehicles almost exclusively—an additional reason to cheer.
ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC IMAGE
Football	Football, thanks to the size of the playing field and the complexity of the uniforms, is great at advertising itself. The team insignia and colors appear everywhere—on the jersey, on both sides of the helmet, on the playing field, on the coaches' jackets and baseball-style caps, and often on the jerseys and jackets and hats of the fans in the stadiums, especially the outdoor stadiums in the colder climates, where extra layers of clothing are practically a necessity. Where football has been less successful, of course, is in fostering player recognition. Almost any true American sports fan would have no trouble conjuring the face of Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth (or even Hank Aaron, though with greater difficulty, thanks to his maddeningly self-effacing demeanor). But how many of us would be able to form an accurate mental picture of Gale Sayers or Bart Starr or even a current headliner like Peyton Manning, great as these players are or may once have been?
Baseball	Baseball, like football, is a natural self-promoter, insinuating itself into every corner of American life. The baseball cap, after all, has become the official American hat, even for many nonfans. And baseball enjoys the added advantage of the many barefaced opportunities for player recognition (it helps that the players are so often standing stock still and that the easy pace of games tends to favor longer careers)—giving fans the sense that they personally know the well-to-do heroes whose careers they follow.
NASCAR	This is where NASCAR comes into its own as the most American of all sports and the almost certain successor to football and baseball in the very near future as the most popular sport in the land. It's a matter of square yardage. Stock cars are, of course, spectacularly colorful, rolling advertisements. Drinking and driving may be a bad combination on public roadways, but on the track it's the perfect combination. Even better for the corporate sponsors that drive the sport, racing is just plain sexy.
TRADITION
Football	American football as we have come to know it is rooted in the American college experience in the decades before the First World War. But, like the U.S. Constitution, the game's been flexible in the face of change. University culture is now more about money and competitive advantages than it is about friendly rivalries among like-minded young men; likewise, American football has grown to become more about money and competitive advantage than it is about sports per se. And as the sport has grown in popularity, it's also come to reflect the character of the American people—its diversity, its love of spectacle, its sheer size.
Baseball	Baseball is less a sport than a game, as any statistics-obsessed fan can tell you. It's a test of hand-eye coordination and strategy above all else. It's also about speed and power, though the relationship between, for example, steals and wins or home runs and wins is debatable. Baseball's relatively recent obsession with power and the still-unresolved steroid scandal are a symptom of an identity crisis. True—eastern liberals who earn a lot of money are still apt to respect the game's tradition (and to worry, therefore, about the legitimacy of modern records)—but the majority of Americans are impatient with the less flashy aspects of the game. Time will tell if baseball as we know it can survive another long century.
NASCAR	The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born in the wake of America's victory in the Second World War. What better way to celebrate that legacy than with naturally carbureted American automobiles driven by the rear wheels, the way God intended it. The good old days are on display across the land, enhanced by the know-how of today's finest automotive engineers and technicians. Anybody who says American auto makers are in trouble hasn't been to a race lately.
ATHLETES
Football	Football players—padded and helmeted and huddled and massed—go about their business in relative anonymity, with the exception of the quarterback, and this is good for the sport. Fans root for their team, not for a particular player; team spirit is even more important than winning itself. In its own way, American football at its best is a kind of reenactment of the Great War and its successor, in which helmeted Americans charged the fields of battle and wrested victory from the enemy.
Baseball	Baseball's athletes are in a little bit of trouble. All the news these days is about steroids, and all this news is presented in a negative light. But if people hate Barry Bonds so much, why don't they focus their attention elsewhere? Is it perhaps because they like home runs more than singles, and because they know how difficult it must be, even on steroids, to do what Barry Bonds has done?
NASCAR	NASCAR's drivers are a little bit like country music stars. They are rather ordinary and unrecognizable to someone like me—an overeducated type who doesn't really care for homespun culture—but to their fans, they are the reassuring image of America itself, as plainspoken as the president and as recognizable as their own parents or brother or sister or drinking buddy or what have you.

NASCAR: accessible; lucrative and sexy; impressively powerful; familiar as apple pie. In short, it's the perfect American sport.

*According to a 2007 Harris Poll, NASCAR ranks fourth behind NFL football, Major League Baseball, and college football in popularity. NBA basketball ranks fifth.

†NASCAR is, of course, the ideal sport for those unfortunate people who do not enjoy the privilege of driving. To be a sports fan is, more than anything else, to live vicariously.